0^ « " " 















BY GEORGE STERLING 

The Caged Eagle and Other Poems 

The Testimony of the Suns and Other Poems 

A Wine of Wizardry and Other Poems 

The House of Orchids and Other Poems 

Beyond the Breakers and Other Poems 

Yosemite 

Ode on the Opening of the Panama-Pacific 

International Exposition 

The Evanescent City 

The Binding of the Beast and Other Poems 

Lilith — A Play 

Rosamund — A Play 

A. M. ROBERTSON 
San Francisco 



*^SAILS AND MIRAGE 

AND OTHER POEMS 



BY 

GEORGE STERLING ^ 

Author of 

"the testimony of the suns" 
"a wine of wizardry" 
"the house of orchids" 

BTC. 



SAN FRANCISCO 

A. M. ROBERTSON 

MDCCCCXXI 



CMqaA 



COPYRIGHT I92I 

h 

GEORGE STERLING 



/ 



DEC 15 (92/ -^ 

©aA653479 /'f 



PRINTED BY BRUCE BROUGH 
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA 



TO MY DEAR FRIEND 

ALBERT M. BENDER 

OF SAN FRANCISCO 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

The Queen Forgets 9 

Saxjl 11 

Ocean Sunsets 13 

The Iris Hills 16 

Dirge 17 

Sanctuary 18 

Spring in Carmel 19 

The Setting of Antares 21 

The Deserted Nest 22 

Kingship . 23 

The First Food 24 

The Wind 25 

A Lost Garden 27 

The Glass of Time 30 

Reason 32 

Sonnets by the Night-Sea 33 

Sails 35 

Mirage 39 

The Skuix of Shakespeare 41 

A Song of Friendship 43 

Two Met 44 

The Common Cult 45 

The Lost Nymph 47 

The Wine of Illusion 48 

Troubadour's Song 49 

Harp-Song 50 

Raoul's Song 51 

Atthan Dances 52 

To Life 53 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

The Roman Wall 54 

''His Own Country" 57 

Lost Colors 59 

The Passing of Bierce 60 

Everest 62 

Afternoon 63 

A Compact? 64 

Autumn in Carmel 65 

Poe's Gravestone 66 

The Secret Garden 67 

Norman Boyer 69 

Of One Asleep 72 

To A Girl Dancing 73 

The Far Feet 78 

Hesperian 79 

The Face of the Skies 85 

The Morning Star ... 86 

The Evening Star 88 

To Charles Rollo Peters 90 

To Ruth Chatterton 91 

The Cool, Grey City of Love 93 

The Princess on the Headland 95 

To THE Moon 97 

The Rune 100 

The Hidden Pool 102 

The Death of Circe 104 

The Pathway 106 

The Last Island . 109 

Infidels 112 

Vox Humana 113 

An Elegy 114 

Sonnets on the Sea's Voice 115 

The Dead Captain 117 

Wind in Pines 119 



SAILS AND MIRAGE 
AND OTHER POEMS 



SAILS AND MIRAGE 



THE QUEEN FORGETS 

What came before and afterward 

(She said) I do not know; 
But I remember well a night 

In a life long ago. 

What spoil was I of Egypt sacked? 

Of what old war the pledge? 
Around my tent whose army lay, 

At the great desert's edge? 

A maiden, or a Satrap's wife, 

A slave or queen was I 
Who saw that night the steady stars 

Go down the living sky? 

And saw against the heavenly ranks 
How one stood watch and ward. 

Black on the stars he stood, and leaned 
On a cross-hilted sword. 



THE QUEEN FORGETS 

There was no sound in all the camp 
But when a stallion neighed .... 

I saw the light of Sirius 
On the cold blade. 

Downward, above a single palm, 
Slowly the great star crept ; 

More motionless my sentry stood, 
As silently I wept. 

What wrath had Libya for my loss? 

In Syria what tears? 
What king or swineherd cursed his god 

In those forgotten years? 

The tale is not in tapestry; 

The grey monks do not know .... 
Only its shadow touches me 

From out the long ago. 

Of terror and of tenderness 

Is that far vigil made 
And the green light of Sirius 

On the chill blade. 



01 



SAUL 

"And they put his armor in the house of 
Ashtoreth." — / Samuel, xxxi, 10. 

Weep for the one so strong to slay, whom One has taken at 

last! 
Mourn for the mail that rings no more and the ruin 

unforecast ! 
This was he of the flaming heart and the deep, heroic breath, 
Whose sword is laid and his armor hung in the House of 

Ashtoreth. 

Weep for the one so swift to slay, whose knees have bent to 

the night! 
Dust is thick on his thresholds now, tho trumpets call to 

the fight. 
Slinger and bowman gather fast, but our strong man does 

not come. 
Captains long for his counsels now, but the sated lips are 

dumb. 

Cry his name in the citadel, sending the runners forth: 
The South gives back no rumor of him ; in vain they question 

the North. 
Seek him not where the wall is held or the spears go in to 

death, 
Whose shield is laid and his armor hung in the House of 

Ashtoreth. 

This was he grown mighty in war, but her war is otherwise : 
Swords that flash from her bosom bared, arrows cast from 
her eyes. 

11 



SAUL 

Who shall stoop from her javelin thrown, who from her 

singing dart? 
Her sudden shaft is hot in his loins, her steel in his 

maddened heart. 

Deep in the still and altared dusk her lamp glows small 

and red, 
Mirrored clear in the great cuirass, like the rubies of her bed; 
Blood of light on his burnished helm, on the belt and the 

greaves, one saith 
Whose spear is laid and his armor hung in the House of 

Ash tore th. 

Tho Gath go up to the threshing-floors, or hosts assemble 

at Tyre, 
Wait no more for your prince's word, who has taken his 

desire. 
Cities and fields and given hearts, honor and life were 

weighed. 
The balance shown and the end foreseen and the deep 

decision made. 

Weep for the one so strong in war, whose war is now of 

the Dark! 
Well he harnessed his breast with steel, but her arrows find 

their mark. 
Her hands have loosened the brazen belt and her breath has 

found his breath 
Whose sword is laid and his armor hung in the House of 

Ashtoreth. 

12 



OCEAN SUNSETS 



Men watch the wide magnificence uprolled, 
A deathless surf of glory down the zones — 
Ancient as that with which the sea intones 

Its undelivered sorrow. Fold on fold 

The foam of splendor deepens, far and cold, 
Below the stars' imaginary thrones, 
Till on the twilight of those sapphire stones 

Are ashes of the sun-deserted gold. 

Along the mighty rondure of the world 
Forever and forever sweeps that wave. 

From Arctic mountains to the southern^floe, 
In soundlessness on purple islands hurled, 
With opalescent wash of hues that lave 
Old summits, sacred in that afterglow. 



13 



OCEAN SUNSETS 



II 



How often, from the bleak sierra's crest, 
The northern headland, the deserted shore, 
Have eyes beheld that crimson billow soar, 

To sink on Edens deeper in the West ! 

How often, on some fatal ocean-quest, 

That light has gleamed upon the lifted oar — 
Cast from that Golden House whose closing door 

Is still the evading goal of our unrest. 

Oh ! far in time and far on alien seas 

Its path has been the heroes' path of light, 

Down which the galley, goddess-lured, was drawn, 
Wildly that radiance was cast on these. 

Till the red prow drove westward in the night, 
Followed by slow Arcturus and the dawn. 



14 



OCEAN SUNSETS 



III 



Roll on, tremendous surf, till the last eyes 
For the last time behold thy glory flame! 
Then, in the sea of darkness whence they came 

Resolve thy splendor and reverting dyes ! 

Thy forfeit hues shall fade on somber skies, 

When, in a breath, man's grandeur and his shame 
Pass to the silences that have no name, 

Where dreams are never and the night denies. 

Thy marvel is of man and not of thee. 
And he being not, no longer thou shalt be. 
Parent and worshipper of loveliness. 

He walks a realm forbidden to the brute — 
An alchemist whose spirit can transmute 
Color and form to beauty's pure excess. 



15 



THE IRIS HILLS 

FROM "ROSAMUND" 

Up to the hills of iris we two went yearning. 
O youth and youth's heart burning! 
O winds of Spring ! 

Far on the hills of iris two lay forgetful. 
O rapture unregretf ul ! 
O fire of Spring! 

Down from the hills of iris we wandered slowly. 
O lilies crushed and lowly ! 
O tears of Spring ! 



16 



DIRGE 

FROM "LILITH" 

O lay her gently where the lark is nesting 

And winged things are glad ! 
Tears end, and now begins the time of resting 

For her whose heart was sad. 

Give roses, but a fairer bloom is taken. 

Strew lilies — she was one, 
Gone in her silence to a place forsaken 

By roses and the sun. 

Deep is her slumber at the last of sorrow, 

Of twilight and the rain. 
Her eyes have closed forever on tomorrow 

And on tomorrow's pain. 



17 



SANCTUARY 

Often I long, in cities wrung by care, 
Awhile in ancient solitudes to sink, 
And stand delaying at a rillet's brink. 

The pilgrim hears but woodland murmurs there, 

And water falling with a sound like prayer 
In hidden pools where only thrushes drink. 
The singing silver joining, link by link. 

Their shadowed crystal, pure as ocean air. 

Hold cool your canyons, O eternal hills ! 

For where the voices are not I would be, 
Led to your heart by those betraying rills. 
Happy, tho for a little, that release, 
In twilights where old memories summon me 
To drain the lonely chalice of your peace. 



13 



SPRING IN CARMEL 

O'er Carmel fields in the springtime the sea-gulls follow the 

plow. 
White, white wings on the blue above! 
White were your brow and breast, O Love! 

But I cannot see you now. 
Tireless ever the Mission swallow 
Dips to meadow and poppied hollow; 
Well for her mate that he can follow, 

As the buds are on the bough. 

By the woods and waters of Carmel the lark is glad in the 

sun. 
Harrow ! harrow ! music of God ! 
Near to your nest her feet have trod, 

Whose journeyings are done. 
Sing, O lover! I cannot sing. 
Wild and sad are the thoughts you bring. 
Well for you are the skies of spring. 

And to me all skies are one. 

In the beautiful woods of Carmel an iris bends to the wind. 
O thou far-off and sorrowful flower ! 
Rose that I found in a tragic hour! 

Rose that I shall not find! 
Petals that fell so soft and slowly, 
Fragrant snows on the grasses lowly, 
Gathered now would I call you holy 

Ever to eyes once blind. 



19 



SPRING IN CARMEL 

In the pine-sweet valley of Carmel the cream-cups scatter 

in foam. 
Azures of early lupin there ! 
Now the wild lilac floods the air 

Like a broken honey-comb. 
So could the flowers of Paradise 
Pour their souls to the morning skies; 
So like a ghost your fragrance lies 

On the path that once led home. 

On the emerald hills of Carmel the spring and winter 

have met. 
Here I find in a gentled spot 
The frost of the wild forget-me-not, 

And — I cannot forget. 
Heart once light as the floating feather 
Borne aloft in the sunny weather, 
Spring and winter have come together — 

Shall you and she meet yet? 

On the rocks and beaches of Carmel the surf is mighty 

to-day. 
Breaker and lifting billow call 
To the high, blue Silence over all 

With the word no heart can say. 
Time-to-be, shall I hear it ever? 
Time-that-is, with the hands that sever, 
Cry all words but the dreadful "Never!" 

And name of her far away ! 

20 



THE SETTING OF ANTARES 

The skies are clear, the summer night is old. 
The foamless ocean reaches to the West, 
With troubled moonlight on its tranquil breast, 

Weary of grief eternally retold. 

Now is that hour when winds and waters hold 
A truce of silence and inducing rest, 
And now, like ocean-eagles to their nest, 

The stars go seaward, silvery and cold. 

An tares, heart of blood, how stir thy wings 
Above the sea's mysterious murmurings! 

The road of death leads outward to thy light, 
And thou art symbol for a time of him 
Whose fated star, companionless and dim, 
Sinks to the wide horizon of the Night. 



21 



THE DESERTED NEST 

A chill is on the air, 
And, robbed by grey November of its leaves. 
The maple tosses, and the north wind grieves 

Among the branches bare. 

That limb above the street 
Holds yet, I see, the trustful robin's nest, 
Where once her eggs were warm below her breast 

When Maytide morns were sweet. 

The fledglings long have flown ; 
The mother bird as well has gone away. 
And in the little home where once they lay 

Are snowflakes early sown. 

Do they, the parents two, 
Remember now the refuge dear and small, — 
The dwelling once beloved over all. 

That held the orbs of blue? 

The snow, the wind, the rain 
Will make a ruin of the nest ere long. 
The spring will come at last with bud and song. 

But they two not again. 

The winter shakes my door, 
And bitter winds are on the frozen earth. 
And on that home of mating and of birth 

That is a home no more. 
22 



KINGSHIP 

On whitest snows the darkest Hes the stain. 

Fair are the flowers at the deadlier brinks, 

And he who deepest of Hfe's nectar drinks 
Has at the last the fouler dregs to drain. 
Our dearest dreams are those that come in vain. 

Heavy the chain when golden are the links. 

Sadness is made the crown of him who thinks. 
Each new ideal brings the heart new pain. 

Nobility and sorrow somehow find 
A kinship. In the exalted courts of mind 
Our laugh is jester and our grief is king. 

Tho happiness be found the fairest goal, 
Man in his pleasure seems a trivial thing. 
And tears the coronation of the soul. 



23 



THE FIRST FOOD 

Mother, in some sad evening long ago, 

From your young breast my groping lips were taken. 
Their hunger stilled, so soon again to waken, 

But nevermore that holy food to know. 

Ah ! nevermore ! for all the child might crave ! 

Ah ! nevermore ! through years unkind and dreary ! 

Often of other fare my lips are weary. 
Unwearied once of what your bosom gave. 

(Poor wordless mouth that could not speak your name! 
At what unhappy revels has it eaten 
The viands that no memory can sweeten, — 

The banquet found eternally the same!) 

Then fell a shadow first on you and me, 

And tendrils broke that held us two how dearly ! 
Once infinitely yours, then hourly, yearly, 

Less yours, as less the worthy yours to be. 

(O mouth that yet should kiss the mouth of Sin ! 

Were lies so sweet, now bitter to remember? 

Slow sinks the flame unfaithful to an ember; 
New beauty fades and passion's wine is thin.) 

How poor an end of that solicitude 

And all the love I had not from another! 
Peace to your dear forgiving heart, O Mother, 

Who gave the dear and unremembered food ! 

24 



THE WIND 

Unseen'^and ancient haunter of the skies! 
Eternal pilgrim, born to yearn and roam, 
Seeking, as man, a refuge and a home 

And that surpassing peace that life denies ! 

Lone visitant and wanderer from afar. 

Of whose strange news we have no certain word, 
Though men from time unsearchable have heard 

Thy chant on frozen mountains to the star ! 

Herder of waves on seas without a sail, 
And trampler of the foam of billows hurled 
Upon the shifting shorelines of the world ! 

Below thy wings the driven deeps are pale. 

Wine of the world, for which its oceans live, 
And clouds go forth, and many lands have rain, 
That else had lifted to the heavens in vain 

The hope and prayer that urge the heavens to give ! 

On what glad wings thou goest to each task 
The sun, thy mighty over-lord, assigns! — 
Lifting all night thy song from northern pines, 

Or threatening a beach where monsters bask. 

Then, at thine own mad will, thy pinions rise, 
To find the colored castles of the morn. 
Or, in those altitudes where thou wast born, 

To raze the pomps of sunset from the skies. 



25 



THE WIND 

Sole voice in nameless cities of the Past, 

Long ruinous, whose dust of monarchs dead, 
Moulded by thee to phantom forms, is led 

Once more down mighty avenues, then cast 

Back to the old oblivion ! Thou dost sing 
Their requiem in lion-haunted rooms; 
The chariots and trumpets of old dooms 

Thou echoest, and battles where they ring. 

Roamer of nights too beautiful for sleep ! 

Launcher of clouds from Heaven's irradiant shore. 
Whose silver and the moon have equal ore 

And company together on the deep ! 

How many hearts have ached to follow thee, 
Dreaming thou farest to the Happy Isles, — 
Dreaming that far beyond the sapphire miles 

Beauty assents beside her starry sea. 

All life shall enter into rest ere thou. 

Who wast before the oceans, and shalt wail 
O'er oceans stilled forever. Thou shalt fail 

When the eternal winter comes; but now. 

Invisible archangel of the world, 

Thy mouth is on thy trumpet, and its cry 
Goes forth in challenge unto earth and sky. 

Ere yet the banners of thy war are furled ! 



26 



A LOST GARDEN 

Under November skies, 

In lovely ruin lies 
A garden, long deserted by the birds. 
The lacquered gold of old magnolia leaves 

Gleams on its hidden lawn 

Like sweet, forgotten words. 
Here a lone poplar, slender-shafted, grieves, 

An hour before the dawn. 

Tranquil the sunlight falls 

As afternoon recalls 
The clime that summer's vanished feet have crossed, 
A memory's lily flashes on the glance. 

Like dryad-silver seen 

For but a breath, then lost 
Far down the western vistas of romance, 

In forests old and green. 

Here lies a reedless pool. 

Mysterious and cool. 
Within whose breast, like a remembered sin 
A mirrored flower casts her scarlet moon. 

Silent the bloom above. 

Silent the bloom within. 
As lovers fearful lest they tell too soon 

Their sorrow and their love. 



27 



A LOST GARDEN 

Dusk has a gentler grace 

Within this quiet place, 
Unhaunted yet by winds that soon shall come. 
The shadows meet. The world accepts the night, 

The night her youngest star. 

An owl, no longer dumb. 
Cries hollowly. A shape beyond the sight 

Responds, and from afar. 

Larger for her delay, 

Slow on the path of day, 
The moon gives softly of her phantom gold. 
The pool, untroubled yet, receives the lure — 

Fain of that fleeting gift, 

Ungatherable, cold. 
Ancient, and as the snows of winter pure, 

Caught in the glacier's rift. 

Upon the morning sky 

The nameless clouds go by. 
Flower of the heavens and their unchanging dream, 
Fled in an hour and in an hour renewed. 

On ways untrod they soar 

Whose fallen shadows stream 
On paths of this reproachful solitude, 

Where footsteps come no more. 



28 



A LOST GARDEN 

But day or night, the spot 

To things imagined not 
Stirs mournfully, as eddying, the leaf 
Sinks earthward to the wind's autumnal moan. 

Here, tho no word be said, 

One finds, in twilights brief, 
A presence and its whisper, still unknown 

And still uncomforted. 

So shall it be till spring 

Return, and linnets sing 
On dawns too delicate for other sound, 
And eves aeolian with the harps of rain, — 

Till Earth again confess 

Her dreaming heart has found 
The beautiful Illusion and its pain. 

So rich in happiness. 



29 



THE GLASS OF TIME 

I know a lake high up among the hills — 
A pure tranquility where shadows rest, 
Accepting to its melancholy breast 
The silver-throated rills. 

A solitary killdee, running fleet, 

(The one unquiet thing that meets the sight) 
Slips like a bead along the thread of light 
Where land and water meet. 

Silent around the forest ramparts press, 
Walling with emerald its quietude. 
Ere Evening and her mystery o'erbrood 
That hush and holiness. 

There secretly the large-eyed stag is found. 
And there at dawn the stealing mist that finds 
Upon its arras the delaying winds, 
Too ghostly for a sound. 

Morning, with distant voices in the wood. 
Shortens the shadows, hour by fragrant hour. 
Voiceless awhile, the redwood sentries tow'r 
Where once their fathers stood. 

Lucid, serene, untroubled by a wind, 

The noonday crystal slumbers, cool and deep, 
Calm as the features of a nun asleep, 
Whom not a dream shall find. 
30 



THE GLASS OF TIME 

Elusively, a sense of things unheard 
Awakes, and is forgotten as it dies. 
The afternoon is great with peace. Then cries, 
Far off, and once, a bird. 

The slow- winged clouds pass in unhast'ing flight 
To some far haven of Hesperian ease. 
Paving that court of chill translucencies 
With alabaster light. 

Therein, as in her sky, the moon shall melt, 
The stars find sanctuary for a space. 
Till morning, uncompassionate, efface 
The palace where they dwelt. 

There if one come, he fills that placid glass 
With azure glory of the mirrored sky. 
Fading, the vision and the glory die 
With him whose footsteps pass . . . 

Lake of the spirit, even so shall cease 

(A pale mirage in heavens profound and far) 
The face of Beauty, passing like a star 
From peace to vaster peace. 



31 



REASON 

Her hands, that seem so pitiless, unbar 

The gates of her incomparable halls 

Where crowns of light make monarchs of her thralls, 
In whom the kingdoms of the Future are. 
Her eyes seem cruel, but they see afar. 

And her lips bitter, but their music falls 

As from the heavens the dawn, and from her walls 
The watchmen first descry the morning star. 

For she alone is truly merciful : 
The spectres of mirage her winds annul 
Have risen but for man's bewildering; 
And in the dusk descending to the grave 
Her dim and caverned lamp alone can save, 
Or show salvation but a futile thing. 



32 



SONNETS BY THE NIGHT-SEA 



V 

The wind of night is like an ocean's ghost. 

The deep is greatly troubled. I, alone, 

See the wave shattered and the wave-crest thrown 
Where pine and cypress hold their ancient post. 
The sounds of war, the trampling of a host, 

Over the borders of the world are blown ; 

The feet of armies deathless and unknown 
Halt, baffled, at the ramparts of the coast. 

Yea ! and the Deep is troubled ! In this heart 
Are voices of a far and shadowy Sea, 

Above whose wastes no lamp of earth shall gleam. 
Farewells are spoken and the ships depart 
For that horizon and its mystery, 

Whose stars tell not if life, or death, is dream. 



33 



SONNETS BY THE NIGHT-SEA 



VI 

The wind of night is mighty on the deep — 
A presence haunting sea and land again. 
That wind upon the watery waste hath been ; 

That wind upon the desert soon shall sweep. 

O vast and mournful spirit, wherefore keep 
Thy vigil at the fleeting homes of men, 
Who need no voice of thine to tell them when 

Is come the hour to labor or to sleep? 

From waste to waste thou goest, and art dumb 
Before the morning. Patient in her tree 

The bird awaits until thy strength hath passed, 
Forgetting darkness when the day is come. 
With other tidings hast thou burdened me, 
Whom desolations harbor at the last. 



34 



SAILS 

In the growing haste of the world must this thing be : 
The passing of sails forever from the sea? 
Fewer always the sails go out to the West; 
More and huger the steamers howl to the star — 

Trailing their smoke afar, 
Staining the deep and the heavens' patient breast. 

Mighty are these we have tamed — 
Giants electric, monsters of gas and of steam, 

Titans unknown tho named. 
But oh! for a younger sea and the sails' glad gleam, 

And the clean horizon's call 
And the Powers of the air man never shall tame at all ! 

Was it not well with the world 

And well with the heart. 
When ships went forth to lands untraced on a chart? - 

When the dauntless wings were furled 
In wonderful havens, virgin then of a mast, 

At islands without a past. 
Girt around with an alien ocean's foam. 

Over the world from home? 



O mariners ! Sea-lords on a stranger blue ! 
Kings of the planet's sapphire morning! You 

That had Mystery for loot! 
Serfs of a sharp unrest that asked no curing 
But that of golden and dragon-guarded fruit, 

Where, past the sky-line luring, 



35 



SAILS 

The dim Hesperides 
Echoed like purple shells the sirened seas! 
A vestige of your kingdom lies in light 
Where a lone sail goes out against the night. 
O path on which the fleets of the world were led ! 
Changing, changeless road of marvel and death, — 
Of songless birds o'er meadows that none shall tread ! 

Of empire gone in a breath 
As the keels of the quick descend to the keels of the dead 

In havens lightless and blind ! 
In the hurry of things shall the sails depart from thee — 

They, kin to the clouds of the sea, 
And driven even as clouds by the harborless wind? 

For I dream of the wonderful wings 

Of the old Phenician quest 
Deeper and deeper into the mystical West; 

Of forgotten ocean-kings, 

When the galley wandered forth, 
And the sail shone white on the cold horizon-line. 
Like an iceberg's peak that lifted far in the North. 

For I dream of the purple brine 
And the blazoned pomp of the saint on the galleon's van. 
As, dark from the deep, the sails of Raleigh or Drake 

On the gold of morning ran. 
For I dream of battles entered for England's sake, 
And Nelson's high war-frigates with canvas taut 
Above the thunder of cannon, the world at stake, 

And the world with death well-bought. 



36 



SAILS 

Splendid now on my dream 

The snows of the cHpper gleam, 
Towers of marble, glorious, tall in the sun — 
Hurling south to the hurricanes of the Horn. 

O pinions, wrenched and torn 

By the north Atlantic's breath, 
On homing whalers, three years' cruising done. 
(Captain! captain! what of the seas of Death?) 
O colored sails of the little fishing-boats. 
From a thousand turquoise harbors venturing, 

Under the tropic day! 

Grey canvasses that bring 
The shapely sealers to San Francisco Bay, 

Where the steel- walled cruiser floats. 

But I hear a naiad sing. 
And softer now in my vision the vans of silk 
Glimmer on eastern shallops, by dusk adrift 
On waters of legend ; and webs as white as milk 
Are wafting a murdered queen to her island tomb, 

Where the cypress columns lift. 

And ghostly now on the gloom 
The shrouded spars of the Flying Dutchman go 

To harbors that none shall know; 
Foamless the ripples of her passing die 
Across the dark, and then from the dark, a cry ! 



37 



SAILS 

O light of the sea-solitude! O sails! 

Must you pass even so 
To the realms of fantasy and the olden tales? 
Ports of oblivion, hidden far from the sun, 
At your anchorage shall every one be furled. 
These wings of man's adventure around the world — 
Like the old beauties dying, one by one? 
Ever the clouds return: shall these come back 

On the wind's unchartered track — 
Braving again the deep's immortal wrath? 
O wings of man's adventure in old years! 

Here at an ocean's brink 

Whence the great, increasing quest 

On the everlasting path 
Draws yet the heart and the hand to the sea's frontiers 

And spaces scornful of rest, 
Under the night's first star I watch you sink. 
In the world's twilight fading, fading West. 



3S 



MIRAGE 

I well remember that the year was old — 
A time of fallen leaves and wings departing. 
Beside our western sea the grass was starting, 

And willow buds were eager to unfold. 

But all that day the shadowed paths were wet, 
As tho in cloud had come the waiting vision. 
And on the sunset altars of transition 

Awhile that mournfulness and beauty met. 

Long gone the night that held my deathless dream — 
Its vanished rain long given to the roses, 
But tho I sleep, no other night discloses 

The Three who shone by that delaying Stream. 

One was called Evening for her slow caress. 

And one called Peace because her eyes were tender, 
(Softly she came, most innocent and slender). 

And one called Heart-ache for her loveliness. 

They were of slumber and mirage's sky — 

Frailties of vision, an august illusion, 

Living a little by the soul's inclusion. 
Living in memory as long as I. 

Yet did they make the burning stars seem clods — 
Those shadows of illusion, passing slowly; 
For on each face a Light fell sad and holy 

From tracts I dreamt forbidden save to gods. 

39 



MIRAGE 

A little while, a little while they gleamed, 

Who were not, are not, yet shall haunt me ever, 
Mingling the sorrow of the Once and Never, 

To glorify the dream of him that dreamed. 

I shall not know them other than they are. 
Who find on paths that memory retraces 
The immortal, mournful beauty of those faces 

That haunting, hold me exile of their star. 



40 



THE SKULL OF SHAKESPEARE 



I 
Without how small, within how strangely vast! 

What stars of terror had their path in thee! 

What music of the heavens and the sea 
Lived in a sigh or thundered on the blast! 
Here swept the gleam and pageant of the Past, 

As Beauty trembled to her fate's decree; 

Here swords were forged for armies yet to be, 
And tears were found too dreadful not to last. 

Here stood the seats of judgment and its light, 
To whose assizes all our dreams were led — 
Our best and worst, our Paradise and Hell ; 
And in this room delivered now to night, 
The mortal put its question to the dead. 

And worlds were weighed, and God's deep shadow fell. 



41 



THE SKULL OF SHAKESPEARE 



II 
Here an immortal river had its rise, 

Tho dusty now the fountain whence it ran 

So swift and beautiful with good to man. 

Here the foundation of an empire lies 

The ruins of a realm seen not with eyes, 

That now the vision of a gnat could scan. 

Here wars were fought within a little span, 
Whose echoes yet resound on human skies. 

Life, on her rainbow road from dust to dust, 
Spilt here her wildest iris, still thine own. 
Master, and with thy soul and ashes one ! 
Thy wings are distant from our years of lust. 
Yet he who liveth not by bread alone 
Shall see thee as that angel in the sun. 



42 



A SONG OF FRIENDSHIP 

FROM "LILITH" 

From earth's horizon, dim and wide, 
The stained moon swings free. 

Castor and Pollux, side by side, 
Go downward to the sea. 

Thy good sword to my need, O friend! 

And my strong shield to thine. 
How bright, before the darkness end, 

The star-companions shine! 

Two hearts may greatly dare the West, 
Where one might know dismay, — 

Two barks join surely in the Quest, 
Where one might miss the way. 

Face thou with me the immortal sun. 

And counsel me by night! 
In wassail and the deed well done 

We two shall fare aright. 

Ever wast thou the clean, blue blade. 

The comrade of the skies. 
The heart's, the hand's abiding aid, 

With truth in heart and eyes. 



43 



TWO MET 

You came, and Mystery murmured in the wood ; 

You spoke : a dryad ventured from her tree ; 

Or was it that my fancy could but see 
The sweet incredible and found my mood 
Demanding the impossible for food? 

I know that both were softly granted me, 

When, like a goddess on her devotee, 
You smiled, and joy was made the only good. 

For us had Silence made the dusk a shrine ; 
For us had needles fallen from the pine; 

For us had come that wind from out the South, 
Wafting your loosened hair across my face, 
As I, oblivious of time and space. 
Turned to your fragrant and consenting mouth. 



44 



THE COMMON CULT 

Up to the House of Mammon, from dawn to sister dawn, 
Called by remembered voices the sons of men are drawn; 
By noon the dust goes skyward, by night the torches flare, 
On veining roads that mingle — and you and I are there. 

Around the House of Mammon, like ruined cities* stones, 
The stubborn and the haughty have left their trampled bones. 
They were the few in number that would not enter in, 
Saying, ''The god is evil." Saying, "To kneel is sin." 

The ebony House of Mammon goes up against the sky; 
The north wind and the south wind before its portals die. 
Its towers go near to Heaven, its vaults go nearer Hell, 
And all are fat with favor to some who serve them well. 

Before the House of Mammon stand you not over-long, 
But enter to the worship, unnoted in the throng; 
There it is ill to parley, to ask the why or when, 
For he whose line would prosper shall be as other men. 

Within the House of Mammon august the twilights are, 
Across whose gulf the portal gleams smaller than a star. 
The bucklers of the mighty in rust and ruin melt 
Above those deep foundations where king and pontiff knelt. 

Within the House of Mammon low thunder of loud pray'rs 
Rolls from the burdened pavement and coiled, colossal 

stairs — 
Petition and obeisance, when each makes known his need, 
Begging the fiamens hearken, begging the largess speed. 

45 



THE COMMON CULT 

Within the House of Mammon his priesthood stands alert, 
By mysteries attended, by dusk and splendors girt. 
Knowing, for faiths departed, his own shall still endure, 
And they be found his chosen, untroubled, solemn, sure. 

Within the House of Mammon the golden altar lifts 
Where dragon-lamps are shrouded as costly incense drifts — 
A dust of old ideals, now fragrant from the coals, 
To tell of hopes long ended, to tell the death of souls. 

Within the House of Mammon there is no need of song, 
And faced by them who doubt not, no doubt endures for 

long; 
Tho twilight hold the temple, there yet each one shall see 
The Word of Words, the letters that spell "Necessity." 

Beyond the House of Mammon there is no need to go. 
And other fanes are shadow whose figments melt and flow. 
Grown weary of the service, no scoffer long derides. 
For past the veils and darkness a very god abides .... 

Above the House of Mammon the hours and ages tread, 
Nor find the ramparts shaken nor see the sentries fled, 
Till o'er the massy columns, broken like those of Tyre, 
The long-awaited Morning go winged with crystal fire. 



46 



THE LOST NYMPH 

Now whither hast thou flown? 

In what retreat art hid? — 
Where falHng waters moan 

In shadow, or amid 
The rushes of the river, pebble-sown? 

'Twas but a breath ago 

I held thy captive hands. 
Clearly thy footprints show 

Along the final sands. 
Almost I hear thy voice, divinely low. 

I do but know thy feet 

Have gone from me — not why. 
I do but know them fleet 

As clouds upon the sky. 
Ah! gone so soon, whom love hath found so sweet! 

Thy loveliness made sure 

Thou wouldst be fled ere long. 
No beauty shall endure 

Beyond its shrining song — 
However close, however strange and pure. 

Afar thy pathway leads, 

Yet will I follow fast, 
Hoping, tho day recedes. 

To find thy home at last 
And silver of thee 'mid the golden reeds. 
47 



THE WINE OF ILLUSION 

I saw One clad in opalescent grey, 

Who held a crystal cup within her hands 
In which a sun was deathless. Mighty wands 

Shook as the spears of starlight in each ray, 

And where they smote, the darkness was as day, 
And where they smote not, night was on the lands. 
Below her feet dead stars were strewn like sands, 

And in her wings the constellations lay. 

''Of this have all men drunken deep," she said. 
"Drink this or perish. There is naught beside. 

This is the draught that fashions men from swine, 
And tho thy heart deny me in its pride, 
Yet of my cup of dreams its blood is red 

And thy lips red with my creative wine!" 



48 



TROUBADOUR'S SONG 

FROM "lILITH" 

Ah! listen, dear! 
The burning hands of Spring 
Are on the world's green girdle. Love is here, 
Long waited. So I sing. 

To sing thee soon 
A madder song than this! — 
Writ in the waning of an olden moon 
To win the first-born kiss. 

Ah! yearning face, 
Too mystically fair! 
Sweet, I would find thee in a hidden place, 
And trembling, loose thy hair! 

Darling, the year 
Sows flowers in thy heart! 
Love, who am I to tell thee in a tear 
How beautiful thou art? 



49 



HARP-SONG 

FROM "LILITH" 

What is it in thy face 
That holds the hidden grace 
Of vanished years? 
Sorrows in long-forgotten midnights tombed, 
Beauty disastrous, tender, and foredoomed, 

For which the seas and suns are, and our tears. 

O turn thou swift to me, 
In whose great eyes I see 
All I have lost ! 
Beyond thy silence waits thy tenderness. 
Beyond all pain thy lingering caress, 

The only rapture worthy of the cost. 

Say nothing, for I know! 
On the far path I go 
Thy love shall save. 
Hath not today made beautiful the Past? 
And when today is yesterday at last. 

Shall not we two remember all it gave? 

Ah, love! this hour, too fleet. 
Spreads purple for thy feet. 
The shadows close 
Above the sunset ashes, ruby-embered ; 
And that old beauty lost in years remembered 
Returns in stillness, as a moon that grows. 



50 



RAOUL'S SONG 

FROM ''lILITH" 

The birds have told their bliss, 
And all too soon that ebbing music ends 
On purple reach of streams where Twilight bends 

The brow to Evening's kiss. 

Turn thou as mute to mine! 
For on the white beginnings of thy breast 
My brow and lips, idolatrous, would rest 

And know the hour divine. 

Now end the barren years. 
The lucid evening star, a drop of dew 
Hidden till sunset's rose had burned anew, 

Shines also in thy tears. 

Let not thy love delay. 
Nor silence hold our destinies apart; 
For what thy beauty says unto my heart 

My heart can never say. 



51 



ATTHAN DANCES 

FROM "truth" 

The silver of the lyre 

Cries, and thy silver feet 
Like living flowers repeat 

Thy body's silver fire. 

What scents without a name 
Within thy tresses hide? 
What perfect roses died 

To give thy mouth its flame? 

Thy hands, uplifting, float 
More delicate than Love's. 
Thy breasts are two white doves 

Whose moan is in thy throat. 

As lyre and cithern swoon. 
Thou lingerest, in thy pace 
The panther's gift of grace. 

Who glides below the moon. 

O linger where I sigh 

Above the golden wine. 

And touch thy mouth to mine — 
A scarlet butterfly. 



52 



TO LIFE 

Witch and enchantress, I have watched you feed 
Your children from your cup of poison-brew; 
Subtly you mix the venom and the dew, 

That drunken, all may follow where you lead. 

Thinking a far mirage their nearer need, 

Whose phantom gardens brighten on the view, 
Where compensating waters may renew 

The hearts that thirst, the failing feet that bleed. 

Such is the power of your deluding wine 
I dream I know its magic and design. 
Saying, "So far, no farther, will I sip. 

Ere the draft grow too bitter." Shall there be 
But deepening illusion for the lip. 
And in the dregs a mightier sorcery? 



53 



THE ROMAN WALL 

(a VICTORIAN speaks) 

Right high our fathers reared its strength 

Against an unpermitted foe, 
With towers that cried along its length : 

"Thus far, no farther, shall ye go!" 

Ours was a fat and gentle land 

Of tended road and ordered shires. 

Well 'stablished by the heavy hand 
And hard- won wisdom of our sires. 

Unharried in that pleasantness 

We dreamt to dwell (O dream too bright!), 
And prosper in our fields' excess, 

And do the thing we thought was right. 

Immune, aloof, oh! fledged with peace, 
We saw the placid years unfold. 

Gathered the garden's mild increase, 
And knelt at altars kind and old. 

Far north, in haze of rain or fog. 
Survived a weird and shaggy folk; 

From heathered hill to quavering bog 
They ran unhindered by our yoke. 

From sea to sea, far-sentineled. 

Mossy, immense, the Wall endured. 

We knew each fortalice firm-held 
And our inheritance assured. 
54 



THE ROMAN WALL 

'We knew!" We did but dream we knew, 

Deluded in our ethnic scorn : 
While autumn glowed and skies were blue, 

The terminating plot was born. 

It was no trumpet brayed them in; 

Their captains did not lead the van. 
A laugh — and where the Wall had been 

Stood the abrupt barbarian ! 

Our augurs cried not of the day — 
The sceptic horde came unf ore told. 

We shudder at the tunes they play, 
Yet have they come to share our gold. 

They camp in every sacred spot; 

Their middens taint the morning breeze — ■ 
Vandal and Viking, Pict and Scot, 

And hairy folk from over-seas. 

Elder, we do not like their songs — 
A fact that moves them not at all. 

Too many to be bound with thongs 
And haled beyond the prostrate Wall. 

They will not drink our costly wines, 
Contented with their swinish brews. 

Their hands are hostile to our shrines 
And pacts long-held with god and muse. 

55 



THE ROMAN WALL 



Brazen, unawed, a facile spawn, 

They house the magpie and the cur, 

In wattled huts that soil the lawn 
Where once the flawless marbles were. 

It may be they have come to stay. 

Indifferent to a chary host ; 
Our sons may welcome them some day, 

And of that rabble make the most. 

But our indignant eyes we cast, 
And our offended ears we turn, 

On vistas purple wih the Past 

And twilights where the gods return. 



56 



"HIS OWN COUNTRY" 

Annu, son of the land of Keef, 
Grew in knowledge and years and grief. 
On him, in token of grief to be, 
There fell the mantle of prophecy. 

In the city of Atthar Annu dwelt, 

And long at the feet of wisdom knelt, 

Till the Sign was shown and the Hour was come 

When his lips might be no longer dumb. 

Annu, heedless of priests or kings. 
Prophesied undesirable things. 
Giving forth to the winds of night 
Words of augury and affright. 

The priesthood smiled at his futile call ; 
The king on his throne heard not at all ; 
But the people of Atthar drove him forth 
To the lonely deserts of the north. — 

Drove him forth from his native bound 
With missile cast to the rabble's sound, 
Bouncing fair from his hapless pate 
Shards of various size and weight ; 



Crying: ''Black be the curses flung 

To the shameful heart and the foolish tongue 

All he has told us is lie on lie. 

By the beard of the prophet Abujai!" 

57 



"HIS OWN COUNTRY" 

And the years flowed onward as of yore, 
And the people of Atthar thought no more 
Of Annu, maddest of devotees, 
And his undesirable prophecies; 

Till a caravan came to the northern gate 
With sound of trumpets and lordly state, 
Crying loud to the Atthar folk : 
"Was it here that the prophet Annu spoke? 

"Show us the temple where he knelt 
And the habitation where he dwelt ! 
Show us the palm where he used to stand, 
For he is great in our northern land!" 

The people of Atthar swiftly flew 
And built a temple with much ado 
On the place where Annu was begot 
(Though none alive was sure of the spot.) 

And there as a prophet they worshipped him 
Where the knees were bent and the lamps were dim 
For the clouds of costly incense burned 
At the shrine of him whom their fathers spurned. 

And the years flowed onward as of old, 
Till a voice was heard on the midnight cold, 
And the people of Atthar, with hearts aflame, 
Stoned a new prophet in Annu's name. 

58 



LOST COLORS 

Grieve not because, ephemeral, they fade, 
Unlike turquoise of cloudless lake or sky, 
And pearls that shall be splendid tho we die : 

Soon from the jewels of the frost are made 

The summer's amber and the vernal jade 
Or hues abandoned at the year's first sigh ; 
And spinners wait unseen by any eye, 

Weaving from dust the lily of the glade. 

Beyond our loss is mighty recompense 
Of new-born loveliness for soul and sense : 
From night the gossamers of morning glow, 
Thrown earthward from the everlasting looms ; 
Still on the northern verge of sunset blooms 
A rose that was disastrous long ago. 



59 



THE PASSING OF BIERCE 

{These lines were written in reply to rumor that Ambrose 
Bierce, the poet, critic and satirist, died hy his own hand.) 

Dream you he was afraid to live? 

Dream you he was afraid to die, 

Or that, a suppliant of the sky, 
He begged the gods to keep or give? 
Not thus the Shadow-maker stood. 

Whose scrutiny dissolved so well 

Our thin mirage of Heaven and Hell — 
The doubtful evil, dubious good. 

If, drinking at the close of day. 
The staling wine at last displease, 
And, coming to the bitter lees. 

One take the sickened lips away. 

Who shall demand the Pilgrim keep 
A twilight session with Disgust, 
And know, since revellers cry he must, 

A farewell nausea ere he sleep? 

Were his a reason to embrace 
The Roman's dignity of death. 
Whose will decreed his final breath. 

Determining the time and place. 

Be sure his purpose was of pride, 
A matter not of fear but taste. 
When, finding mire upon the waste, 

And hating filth, he turned aside. 



60 



THE PASSING OF BIERCE 

If now his name be with the dead, 
And, where the gaunt agaves flow'r, 
The vulture and the wolf devour 

The lion-heart, the lion-head. 

Be sure that head and heart were laid 
In wisdom down, content to die. 
Be sure he faced the Starless Sky 

Unduped, unmurmuring, unafraid. 



61 



EVEREST 

Who views thee from the plain 
Shall dream of coolness, not the icy storm 
That on the bosom of thy mighty form 
Is but a stain. 

Who sees thine altar-snows 
Shall muse on vastness and serenity, 
Not know what winds are evermore on thee, 

Above repose. 

Who views thee from afar 
Shall ponder on Time's magnitude, nor guess 
Thine evanescence and thy nothingness 
Below the star. 

Untrod, unshared, apart, 
O snows where none shall dare, nor wish, to dwell! 
O summit lone and inaccessible 
Within each heart! 



62 



AFTERNOON 

The hot, huge slumber of the silent day- 
Has left the listening world no word but peace. 
The broken shadows cease, 

Impassively, their weaving and their play. 
Submitting to this dream's divine release. 

The vacant heavens are like a waveless sea. 

Far up, a hawk drifts lonely, but no cry- 
Falls from the void of sky 

That veils by day the passing stars on high, 
Nor from that other Void a cry to me. 

The dome of the enormous afternoon. 

The yellow mountain-side, the hush between, 
Tell not of the unseen, 

And voiceless now the mind and senses swoon, 
Uncaring what the Veil or Void may mean. 

Lilies asleep are quiet as your hands, 

That move not, though the breathing bosom stir. 
The pain of years that were 

Slumbers awhile, lulled by the subtle myrrh 
Whose fragrance broods on all the summer lands. 

Evening will come more soundless than her star, 
And some cool wind wake hungers in the breast. 
Now not to think is best, 
And love is tenderest because afar, 
And deeper than its rapture is its rest. 
63 



A COMPACT? 

Far up the mountain-side today 
The slopes are baked and hot; 

I find no shade upon my way, 
And water-springs are not. 

Here, where a little gully's wall 
Takes shadow from the south, 

I see a tiny rillet crawl 
From out a stony mouth. 

Now, where the stream begins to fail 

Below a narrow brink, 
I carve a basin in the shale 

That small wild things may drink. 

A poor and shallow cup, at best. 
But good for beaks and lips. 

Slowly from out the mountain's breast 
The clearing water drips ; 

And well I know when sunset light 
Makes sharp the canyon rims. 

My pool will wait the things of night, 
Where pure and cool it brims. . . . 

Spirit of nature, you that first 
Called rain-clouds from the sea. 

When next my needy mouth shall thirst 
Do you as much for me! 
64 



AUTUMN IN CARMEL 

Now with a sigh November comes to the brooding land. 
Yellowing now toward winter the willows of Carmel stand. 
Under the pine her needles lie redder with the rain. 
Gipsy birds from the northland visit our woods again. 

Hunters wait on the hillside, watching the plowman pass 
And the red hawk's shadow gliding over the new-born grass. 
Purple and white the sea-gulls swarm at the river-mouth. 
Pearl of mutable heavens towers upon the south. 

Westward pine and cypress stand in a sadder light. 
Flocks of the veering curlew flash for an instant white. 
Wreaths of the mallard, shifting, melt on the vacant blue. 
Over the hard horizon dreams are calling anew. 

Dumb with the sense of wonder hidden from hand and eye, — 
Wistful yet for the Secret ocean and earth deny, — 
BafHed for Beauty's haunting, hearts are peaceless today, 
Seeing the dusk of sapphire deepen within the bay. 

Far on the kelp the heron stands for awhile at rest. 
The lichen-colored breaker hollows a leaning breast. 
Desolate, hard and tawny, the sands lie clean and wide, 
Dry with the wafted sea-wind, wet with the fallen tide. 

Early the autumn sunset tinges to mauve the foam; 
Shyly the rabbit, feeding, crosses the road to home. 
Daylight, lingering golden, touches the tallest tree, 
Ere the rain, like silver harp-strings, comes slanting in 
from sea. 

65 



POE'S GRAVESTONE 

"... old friends and the school children of Richmond . . . 
asked those great men of Boston, who had been Poe's con- 
temporaries, . ... to join in commemorating his memory. 
These invitations were either ignored or they were not ac- 
cepted .... Lowell .... Bryant .... Whittier .... 
Longfellow . . . ." 

The very tomb shall cover not the shame 

Of those that would have bound thy wings of light! 
Toiling for Beauty in the quiet night, 

Little to thee were primacy or name ; 

But now thy star is found a holy flame 
In heavens unpermitted to their flight — 
Unseen by those who have not in their sight 

The slowly guttering candles of their fame. 

Puritanism's grey and icy ooze 

Was rheum in those inexorable eyes, 

That would not see wherein thy greatness stood. 
The meager honor that they dared refuse 

Was earth's, O thou that followed to the skies 
Beauty, whose final goal is human good. 



66 



THE SECRET GARDEN 

Hidden from all it lies 

But the revealing skies, 
Whose highest star is lamp and warden here. 
The leopards of the palace prowl not near, 

And foiled are cruel eyes. 

Marble has walled around 

The myrtle-given ground. 
And cypress-tow'rs dismay the song of birds, 
Where two find now the needlessness of words, 

And two alone are found. 

In dream or reverie. 

Beyond the wood they see 
The wind's wan hand, admitted or withdrawn, 
Stirring the golden arras of the dawn 

Or dusk's red tapestry. 

Where the wind sorroweth 
It strews with drifting breath 

The snow of petals or their cool turquoise. 

Beauty that leaves the heart but tears for voice 
Has refuge here — and death. 

Whether the brown bees hum. 

Or leaf and lip are dumb, 
The passion told is told beyond recall. 
The silence made an answer unto all, 

Where two alone may come. 
67 



THE SECRET GARDEN 

Love hears in this domain 
The moan born not of pain. 
The roses of the bower and the face, 
The scarlet of the fiow'r and the embrace, 
Are brief, but not in vain. 

But whatso word love say, 
No word of love can stay 

The long delight whose music is a sigh. 

The rapture and the beauty soon to die 
No clinging hands delay. 

For whether midnight moon 

Or light of afternoon 
Weave silently the shadows of the flowers, 
Too soon is come an ending of the hours, 

And parting come too soon. 



68 



NORMAN BOYER 

The years go by, and I am yet to be 

Where Hes your dust, friend of a month and day. 
The hours we spent together by the sea 
Seem very far away! 

Moonstones, and shells of silver and of gold, 

Awhile I gathered, hardly knowing why, 
And wondered that your gaze was fixed and cold. 
There, as you watched the sky. 

But that Horizon which you pondered on 
I knew not, I that am one day to know. 
Outward so soon your shadowy bark was gone 
Where all the ships must go! 

For even then, as quietly you scanned 

The sea-line, hard between the azures met. 
The word had come, the going-forth was planned, 
The last decision set. 

Vainly, I think, you strove to take the blame 

From other hearts, — to balance peace and strife 
Vainly, till sure as death is sure, there came 
The swift distaste for life. 

The fool alone may censure you, I think. 

The wise have other vision, having stood, 
Themselves, in question at oblivion's brink, 
Incredulous of good. 
69 



NORMAN BOYER 

The Host that had you in from out the night 
Served viands that were Httle to your taste : 
You turned in silence from the noise and Hght 
To gain the soothing waste. 

I wonder not. I more than half admire 
The critical disdain that set you free, 
And find it odd that men so slowly tire 
Of Time's banality. 

'Tis strange that I should like that Spider's mesh, 

Nor mix with Life to sicken at a touch. 
The sores and pimples on the lovely flesh 
Disturb me not too much. 

Would you decide me callous, you that had 
No stomach for the base, delicious feast, 
And think me, in my power to be glad, 
Too near the miring beast? 

Could you but say which one of us was blind ! 

Which way led sanity? And did you use 
Courage and wisdom that we do not find? 
And shall the dead accuse? 

The simple heart sees life in white and black. 
And may be right at that. To me 't is grey. 
Hear music in the screaming from the rack? 
Some hear that way. 
70 



NORMAN BOYER 

What doors go wide at bullet, drug or knife? 
See you the Scheme? Or do you see at all? 
Deride myself for not deriding life? 
Must life appall? 

Time is, and still cries Pilate, "What is truth?" 

Amid the million answers make your cast! 
The tolerance that cannot be in youth, 
The wise attain at last. 

"The wise?" Again the argument's begun. 

And forms loom vaguely through the darkling glass ! 
O questions to be answered but by one, 
And that one's self, alas! 

The tumult or the quietude? None knows 

Which he had found the dearest and the best ; 
And whatsoever way the current flows, 
"I like" is still the test. 



71 



OF ONE ASLEEP 

Clear you call above the grasses, 
Where the lonely river passes 

Gently, but she cannot hear — 
Thrush of twilight, lark of morning, 
Quail of noon whose crystal warning 

Tells of one who wanders near. 

Ever out across the valley 
Veering hawk or swallow sally, 

And the snowy gull goes free. 
Pine and poppy, sage and willow, 
Silver foam and azure billow. 

Wait us, but she cannot see. 

Wind of autumn, hush of dreaming, 
Star of evening westward gleaming, 

Still you haunt me from the Past. 
Voice of ocean, sadly calling. 
Still you haunt the days befalling 

And the days that could not last. 



72 



TO A GIRL DANCING 

Has the wind called you sister? 
Sister to Kypris, who, as the far foam kissed her, 

Rose exquisite and white. 
For seeing you, we dream of all swift things 

And of the swallow's flight, — 
Of sea-birds drifting on untroubled wings. 
And incense swaying at the shrine of kings. 
In gossamers of violascent light. 
In what Sicilian meadows, cool with dew, 

Ran rosier girls than you. 

With tresses dancing free, 
To tell how beautiful the world might be? 

In what high days unborn. 
Will sheerer loveliness go forth at morn. 
To wave a brief farewell to night's last star? 
For you, we envy not the lost and far, 

As now you make our day 
As happy and imperial as they. 

More than the ripple of grass and waters flowing,- 

More than the panther's grace 
Or poppy touched by winds from sunset blowing, 

Your limbs in rapture trace 
An evanescent pattern on the sight — 
Beauty that lives an instant, to become 
A sister beauty and a new delight. 
So full you feed the heart that hearts are dumb. 



73 



TO A GIRL DANCING 

Those little hands set back the hands of time, 
Till we remember what the world has dreamed, 

In her own clime, 
Of Beauty, and her tides that ebb and flow 
Around old islands where her face has gleamed, 
The marvellous mirage of long ago. 

Ah! more than voice hath said 

They speak of revels fled — 
The alabastine and exultant thighs, 

The vine-encircled head, 
The rose-face lifted, lyric, to the skies. 
The loins by leaping roses garlanded. 

The sandaled years return, 

The lamps of Eros burn. 

The flowers of Circe nod. 
And one may dream of other days and lands, 
Of other girls that touch unresting hands — 

Sad sirens of the god. 

To some forgotten tune 
Swaying their silvern hips below the moon. 

Dance on, for dreams they are indeed, 

A vision set afar. 
But you with warm, immediate beauty plead, 
And fragrant is your footfall on our star. 

O flesh made music in its ecstasy. 
Sing to us ere an end of song shall be ! 



74 



TO A GIRL DANCING 

O fair things young and fleet! 

White flower of floating feet! 
Be glad ! Be glad ! for happiness is holy ! 
Be glad awhile, for on the greensward slowly 

Summer and autumn pass, 

With shadows on the grass. 

Till in the meadow lowly 
November's tawny reeds shall sigh "Alas!" 

Dear eyes, 
What see you on the azure of the skies? 

Enchanted, eager face. 
Seek you young Love in his eternal place? 
Round arms upflung, what is it you would clasp — 

What far-off lover? 

Hands that a moment hover, 
What hands unseen evade awhile your grasp? 
Ah! that is best: to seek but not to find him, 
For found and loved the seasons yet will blind him 

To this true heaven you are — 
That moth unworthy of your soul's white star. 
Dance on, and dream of better things than he! 
Dance on, translating us the mortal's guess 
At Beauty and her immortality — 
Yourself your flesh-clad art and loveliness. 

Dance, for the time comes when the dance is done 

And feet no longer run 
On paths of rapture leading from the day. 



75 



TO A GIRL DANCING 

Release not now 
The]^vine that you have bound about your brow : 
Dance, granting us awhile that we forget 

How morrows but delay, 
Yet come as surely as their own regret. 

Through you the Past is ours, 

Through you the Future flow'rs, 
In you their dreams and happiness are met. 

Through you we find again 

That birth of bliss and pain. 
That thing of joy and tears and hope and laughter 

That men call youth — 

A greater thing than truth, 

A fairer thing than fame 

In songs hereafter, 
A miracle, an unreturning flame, 
The season for itself alone worth living, 
And needing not our patience nor forgiving. 

O heart that knows enough, and yet must learn 

The wisdom that we spurn ! 

The years at last will teach you : 

May now no whisper reach you 
Of noons when pleading of the flutes shall cease 
And not for rapture will you beg, but peace. 
To-day it seems too harsh that you should know 

How soon the wreaths must go 

And those flower-mating feet 



76 



TO A GIRL DANCING 

Be gathered, even as flowers, by cruel Time, 

Their flashing rhyme 
No more to mingle with the blood's wild^beat. 
Dance, with no wind to chill your perfect grace, 

Nor shadow on your face. 
Nor voice to call to unenduring rest 
The limbs delighting and the naked breast. 



77 



THE FAR FEET 

Afton Annesley, gone forever, 

Cold to-night are the stars above, 

That see all beauty, but never, never, 
One thing sweet as our woodland love. 

Over our heads the pines were sighing; 

Under us two their needles lay. 
Then was an end to all denying: 

All we feared was the break of day. 

Afton Annesley, ocean calling 

Echoes all of an old regret. 
Sea-mist rising and twilight falling 

Waken things that I half forget. 

Pain tho it were, let me remember 
All that met in the farewell kiss. 

Tears and rain of a far November, 
Equal now in the silences! 

Afton Annesley, starlight only 
Lit your way to the trys ting- tree. 

Here I find on the wood-path lonely 
Futile dreams of a tryst-to-be. 

Still would I seek you, past regaining, 
Grief and joy of a tragic year. 

Lost Elysium! Autumn, waning, 

Murmurs all — if the heart could hear. 
78 



HESPERIAN 

Strange, when the blood runs wild to-day in me, 

That I but dream of the faces now so far 
On the heart's horizon, near, so near, to the sea, 
And setting dimly, star by fugitive star! 

Now, if ever, are days when the mounting bliss 

Should flood the limbs and wet with rapture the eyes 

Strange, that I dream of only a tragic kiss. 
And a moon gone down forever on the skies. 

April bends to her poppies dropped in flight. 

O mother-month of Nature giving the breast. 
With the land a pure and emerald breadth of light, 

And ocean voices echoing out of the West! 

The romping wind had a sort of boyishness. 
Fled to tease the stranding cloud on the hitl. 

Never a ripple moves the water cress 

In the stream, and the million-chorded pine is still. 

Winter stars are gone with the winter rains. 

And almond petals long since gone from the bough. 

Birds begin to nest in the willow lanes. 
It is faun weather again in Carmel now. 

A cloud far lost on the high, eventless blue 
And a vine whose little clarions have scent 

For sound, awaken the memory of you — 
Mist and myrrh in a dream unhappy blent. 

79 



HESPERIAN 

How many mutinous years ago to-day 

Did I watch you first as you wandered over the sands? 
How many pitiless miles of dust away 

Do you wander now, and in what shadowy lands? 

Well I remember how soon it was we stood, 

When the morning wind had gathered the night's last tear, 
And watched the clouds brim over the western wood, 

And "There," you said, "are the snows of yesteryear." 

Glad am I now that I was too glad to muse 

On the snows that haunt the farther dreams of man, 

But took the kiss that the Fates of to-day refuse. 
And ran where you said an unseen dryad ran. 

Dream you, silver dryad that once you were. 

Of the wind and the sands and the sunset far away, 

Of the silence fallen, that only a kiss could stir, 

And the wild, golden wood-days, ever with yesterday? 

Well I remember foamless reaches of sea, 

Undulant, living, with shimmer of pale-blue silk; 

Gazing now where the winged foam leaps free, 
I remember your eyes, like agates bathed in milk. 

Beauty's paths — was there one that we did not take, 

Whether it wound by mosses of the sea 
Or led our feet to valleys of sage and brake. 

Where blue-jays tumbled, slim, in the buckeye tree? 

80 



HESPERIAN 

Morning girdled half of a world in gold, 

Gathered up in earth's melodious hours. 
April walked with buds too many to hold, 

Till weary bees seemed taking their time with the flowers. 

Leaves, owl-brown, of a mottled sycamore 
Stirred or slumbered on drowsy river-sand. 

Over the stream we watched a falcon soar, 
White o* the breast, as you were white o* the hand. 

Clouds of spring crept over a far-off hill. 

Lingering as a broken wind grew less, 
And a shadow lay like a hush made visible 

Where the redwood dreamed in an emerald loneliness. 

Over the tawny meadowland at noon 

Hiving blackbirds surged and sank in their flight. 

Under the northern shadow of the dune. 

Sands were clean as the moon of day was white. 

Ocean shells with tint of an autumn leaf 
Lay where desolate beaches bade us roam ; 

And we saw the edge of the wave well over the reef. 
Willow-green, till it broke to music and foam. 

Sounding sapphire and billows of choral jade. 
Deep and wild your song on the lucent air, 

As we watched the golden reefs of sunset fade. 
Ere our galleons of dream could founder there. 

81 



HESPERIAN 

Mournful, mute, for the world's new loveliness, 
Sad and glad with the beauty of Time and love, 

We told it all in a wondering caress — 

Heedless of Time and the jealous stars above. 

Mute or not, of your mouth I had its word, 
Softer than ear may know or a tongue impart; 

And a heart-whole even-song of a hidden bird 
Rose in the hush to make reply for my heart. 

Paths of peace that we shall not trace again, 
Where the Mariposa lily shone and waned, 

And Fremont's flower blazed trail for the cyclamen! 
O lily cup, and cup of our passion drained! 

O ghost of fire where the wind ran grey in the grass! 

Wild lilac bloom and audible rapture of bees ! 
Branches bent for the feet of Love to pass ! 

Voice of Love so low in the veiling trees! 

Rapture grown too deaf to hearken or heed ! 

Lips that cried in a music unsuppressed ! 
Beauty given beyond all bearing or need ! 

Pansy-bronze of your eyes, and apple-bloom of your 
breast I 

O far away! do you never harken in sleep 
As I, to an ocean-echo mingled with dream, 

From shore and reef of an indiscernable Deep — 
A music set to a memory supreme? 

82 



HESPERIAN 

Was it worth our pain, our desolation of loss? 

Was it best that our lips be given to other Hps? 
Far on the blue the sails, ephemeral, cross. 

Over the West the star, immutable, slips. 

Here by the beauty and terror of the sea, 

On a dune between the sapphire and the pines, 

I have mused on all that your beauty meant to me 
And a final beauty that love at last divines. 

I have watched for an hour the wave's deliberate grace. 

I shall sit and dream of an old regret, I know, 
And the touch of things inviolate in your face, 

Till the granite facets take the afterglow. 

Can it be that the thorns that we found at last so sharp 

Saved for us then our irretrievable rose, 
Tho the storm that took an ocean for its harp 

Died at last on the far, foreshadowing snows? 

Somehow, dumbly, out of this dark of things. 
Heart and soul find words of a wiser tongue. 

Somehow, blindly, take a splendor of wings, 

Made of the dreams we dreamt when we were young. 

Never a worthless flower the seasons find, 

Nor utter night, tho shadows fall as they must. 

Fresh on the brow is an ever-living wind 

From a Sea of change whose foam is blossoming dust. 

83 



HESPERIAN 

Surf- walls eternally builded, eternally overthrown, 
Deep in the heart we find your vision and song. 

Paths apart, that we took at last alone, 
Led you not to the greater hills ere long? 

O wine we drank, whose very dregs were delight ! 

I have seen your scarlet over a setting sun. 
Flower of flesh and flower of an April night ! 

Far in the moon your loveliness is one. 

Fates that mix with beauty of sun and moon 
Love that seemed awhile the heart of a star, 

Would I yearn for its joy if it had not died so soon? 
Would I dream of its grace if it had not fled so far? 



84 



THE FACE OF THE SKIES. 

Who shall loose Orion's bands? 

"I!" saith Eternity. 
'I with annulling hands 

Shall set the Titan free." 

Who shall erect upon the sky- 
New forms of might? 

Saith Eternity: "I! 
I shall re-people night. 

'As a breath on glass, — 
As witch-fires that burn, 

The gods and monsters pass, 
Are dust, and return. 

'Is the toil much to you 

That is Httle to me? 
Such dreams the gods knew," 

Saith Eternity. 



85 



THE MORNING STAR 

'Mid hush of wind and constellations paling, 
Thou gleamest yet, O herald of the dawn ! 

Tho sister stars, whom light is slowly veiling, 
Tremble and pass, in quietude withdrawn. 

Now Nature, stilled as tho in adoration. 

Bids, voiceless, that the hallowed heart aspire 

To pause before thy beauty's consummation 
And make itself the altar of thy fire. 

Slowly above the darkened forest creeping. 

One cloud, the lonely child of Heaven and Night, 

Across the sky goes desolate and weeping, 
Shrouding the north, but not thy vestal light. 

incommunicable beauty burning 

With silent flame the body and the soul ! 
The exalted gaze, in solitude upturning. 
Finds in thy star a mystery and goal. 

Azures of twilight robe the southern mountain, 

Where wakes the bird to greet thee with his mirth, 

And see thine image in the tranquil fountain — 
Too bright, too calm, too pure a thing for earth. 

1 dream that song an echo of thy singing 
Who dream thou singest in thy clear domain, 

Till from thy zone the falling music, ringing, 
Mingles its crystal with the falling rain. 
86 



THE MORNING STAR 

Flushed as with radiance of wings immortal, 
Glow now the tracts on which thy glory came, 

Till through the amethystine eastern portal 
The morning comes, led by thy dying flame. 

Farewell ! whose presence now and each to-morrow 
Makes lyrical the heavens and the years, 

Wedding the breath of ecstasy and sorrow. 
That beauty such as thine transcend its tears. 



87 



THE EVENING STAR 

Eastward in afterglow the mountains rise, 
An evanescent rose on granite fading — 
Far hues that seem, a crystal silence aiding, 

The walls of a deserted Paradise. 

The sunset dies, with scarlet pinions furled. . . . 

On azure plains the sea-winds sink or falter. . . . 

Evening and ocean are thy shrine and altar, 
O grail of silver lifted to a world ! 

The wine of thy pure chalice none shall drain; 
But he that sees thy vesper glory burning 
Shall walk the purple of thy kingdom, spurning 

All loveliness that haunts him without pain. 

The mighty waters, darkening afar, 

Throng the grey shores with mournful voices calling. 

Echoes reply. Earth's shadow, eastward falling. 
Is cold upon the pathway of the star. 

The loneliness departing sunsets leave 
Is deeper for the vision of thy splendor, 
Whose radiance, ethereal and tender, 

Burns tremorless upon the winter eve. 

O flame above the Islands of the Blest! 

Often, ah! often, not alone in story. 

Have young Love's eyes been lifted to thy glory, 
Yearning to follow thee beyond the West — 

88 



THE EVENING STAR 

Yearning in vain, through all unhappy years: 
He shares with Beauty her inherent sorrow. 
As yesterday beheld, so must to-morrow 

Behold thy light regathered by his tears. 

The charts of sea and heavens limn thy flight. 
Yet still we seek a Land beyond, whose faces 
Forever gleam with thy mysterious traces — 

Touched faintly by thy slowly setting light. 

O Land that youth alone, or folly, seeks! 
A Shadowland, these many years forbidden, 
By sunset or the last horizon hidden, 

And thou the fire above its altar-peaks. 

So art thou light to that which only seems ; 
So art thou symbol of another Setting 
To us, unfortunate and unforgetting, 

Homesick for that lost country of our dreams. 



89 



TO CHARLES ROLLO PETERS 

MASTER- PAINTER OF NOCTURNES 

Beauty and dusk have met to make your dream, 
And born of each it lifts immortal wings. 
This hour Keats' nightingale forever sings, 

And here the rubies of his twilight gleam. 

For this the moon with iridescent beam 
Of ghostly silver hallows earthly things, 
And here the goddess of the shadow brings 

Her mystery by your magic found supreme. 

O hush of earth and heaven, pause awhile, 
For more than music is your thrall to us. 
And human discords find us all too soon — 
We mariners that see on Circe's isle 

Jewels that dusk makes richly luminous. 
And opals of the midnight and the moon. 



90 



TO RUTH CHATTERTON 



I 
Hear I the fragile music of the fay? 

What ancient magic holds me? Now at last 

I seem to find the wonder of the Past, 
Known before Time had touched the world to grey. 
Some vanished star has found me with its ray, 

That once in seas of old romance was glassed ; 

A shadow of enchantment softly cast 
By some lost moon is on my heart to-day. 

Yours is the charm that perished long ago 

(Or so we thought). Now listening, I know 

Forgotten spells are on the air tonight, 

And dreams that haunt me in an irised band. 
Your captive unconditional I stand. 
Wounded deliciously by sound and sight. 



91 



TO RUTH CHATTERTON 



II 

No more of Helen's beauty, nor the hand 
Of Circe waving would my visions be, 
For western sunsets long have saddened me, 

Watched as the surf was on the twilight strand, 

Till now my dream is of a nameless land — 
A realm of rains and grass beside the sea, 
Where roams a gray-eyed princess, dryad-free, 

On paths between the forest and the sand. 

Again my dream has change, till sea and wind 
Seem far away, and in a garden-close 

Translucent flowers touch the calm with musk, 
On yellow marbles delicately twined, 
Where, silent as her heavy-petalled rose, 
A golden queen sits in a golden dusk. 



92 



THE COOL, GREY CITY OF LOVE 

(SAN FRANCISCO) 

Tho I die on a distant strand, 
And they give me a grave in that land. 
Yet carry me back to my own city! 
Carry me back to her grace and pity! 
For I think I could not rest 
Afar from her mighty breast. 
She is fairer than others are 

Whom they sing the beauty of. 
Her heart is a song and a star — 

My cool, grey city of love. 

Tho they tear the rose from her brow. 

To her is ever my vow; 
Ever to her I give my duty — 
First in rapture and first in beauty, 

Wayward, passionate, brave, 

Glad of the life God gave. 

The sea-winds are her kiss. 
And the sea-gull is her dove ; 

Cleanly and strong she is — 
My cool, grey city of love. 

The winds of the Future wait 

At the iron walls of her Gate, 
And the western ocean breaks in thunder, 
And the western stars go slowly under. 

And her gaze is ever West 

In the dream of her young unrest. 
93 



THE COOL, GREY CITY OF LOVE 

Her sea is a voice that calls, 

And her star a voice above. 
And her wind a voice on her walls — 

My cool, grey city of love. 

Tho they stay her feet at the dance, 

In her is the far romance. 
Under the rain of winter falling, 
Vine and rose will await recalling. 

Tho the dark be cold and blind, 

Yet her sea-fog's touch is kind, 

And her mightier caress 

Is joy and the pain thereof; 

And great is thy tenderness, 
O cool, grey city of love! 



94 



THE PRINCESS ON THE HEADLAND 

My mother the queen is dead. 

My father the king is old. 

He fumbles his cirque of gold 
And dreams of a year long fled. 
The young men stare at my face, 

But cannot meet my glance — 

Cavan tall as a lance, 
Orra swift in the race. 

Death was ever my price, 
Since my maidenhood began: 
At the thought of a Gaelic man 

My heart is sister of ice. 

'T is another for whom I wait, 
Tho I have not kissed his sword : 
He or none is my lord, 

Tho our night be soon or late. 

The star grows great in my breast : 

It is crying clearly now 

To the star on the burnished prow 
Of his galley far in the West. 
The capes of the North are dim. 

And the windward beaches smoke 

Where the last long roller spoke 
The tidings it held of him. 



95 



THE PRINCESS OF THE HEADLAND 

Sorrow I know he brings, 

Battle, despair and change, — 

Beauty cruel and strange, 
And the shed bright blood of kings. 
Breast, be white for his sake! 

Mouth, be red for the kiss! 

Soul, be strong for your bliss! 
Heart, be ready to break! 



TO THE MOON 

Whether by starry waters westward led, 

Where foam as white as thou is on the coast, 

Or when the lilies of the dawn are red, 
Ever thou seemest lonely, and a ghost. 

'Mid frost of stars I saw thee pace the night, 
High over quiet field and voiceless tree, 

When Sirius shook like a tear of light, 
On sapphire darker than the morning sea. 

When ocean drank the dregs of sunset's wine 

I watched thy keen-horned crescent sink and go. 

On islands past the vague horizon line 
Bent like a Titan's huge and golden bow, 

Or like a wave that broke to stirless foam 
Upon a beach of Heaven, curved and vast — 

Sands where the shades of mariners might roam 
And watch a spectral sail go dumbly past. 

And I have seen thee crumbling and decayed, 
A sepulchre of beauty long unsung — 

On whose chill nacre wreaths as chill were laid 
And sorrows graven in a nameless tongue. 

And I have seen thee glorious and great. 

Flooding the world and walking free of bars; 

Arcturus was thy captain at the gate. 

And thy companions were immortal stars. 

97 



TO THE MOON 

Yet ever wert thou wraith and wanderer 

Within that desolation of the sky, 
Gazing on realms where worlds no longer were, 

Whose death had shown thee how all worlds must di« 

Wherefore our own. Is it for this that we 

Are pensive in thy melancholy light, 
Guessing, from thine, the sun's mortality, 

The cold and silence of the crypts of night? 

Gleamest thou symbol of oblivion, 

Showing with frozen light, but light no less. 

What swords are on the roadway of the sun, 
What Shadows gather in the Timelessness? 

Or art thou pledge that recompense may be. 
And beauty, changing, still abide with death — 

A crystal clearer for an icy sea, 

A snowflake born of winter's arctic breath? 

For still thou grantest to our dreams a way, 

Whether thy silver dawn is on the east. 
Or where, between the starlight and the day, 

Thy feet of alabaster go released ; 

And ocean calls, remembering thy lure. 
And gathers jewels for thy path of flame, 

Heaped diamond, unfathomable, pure, 

From age to age reshattered — and the same. 

98 



TO THE MOON 

As waters follow thee in wide pursuit, 

So dost thou lead us to a dream's beyond. 

Washed by thy tides of pearl the land lies mute, 
And mute our souls, touched by thy magic's wand. 

So lead awhile, till we be led no more, 

Nor take, as thou, our morrows from the sun. . . . 
Slowly, from mountain-peak to soundless shore, 

Time's purple deepens to oblivion. 



99 



THE RUNE 

FROM "truth" 

Nain the prince, one day in youth, 
Playing on the northern dune, 

Found an Arctic dragon-tooth, 
Whiter than the crescent moon. 

Keen and cold and bright it lay, 

Where a long-forgotten keel 
Crumbled gauntly, day by day, 

And the gull and curlew wheel. 

Nain, enraptured with the thing. 

Quick and eager, like a bird, 
Brought it to the drunken king — 

Hoping for a thankful word. 

Called the king for Amelup, 

Graver of the gem and gold ; 
Bade him make of it a cup, 

Ere the budding month grew old. 

Ere the given time ran out, 

Amelup in ruby flame 
Girt the ivory about 

With a long-unuttered name. 

Amelup, before the king 

Learned what weird lay gleaming there, 
Found by night a faery ring; 

Faded in that magic air. 
100 



THE RUNE 

Now the king will never have 
Knowledge of the glowing rune, 

Tho the witch in crypt and cave 
Beg her daemon to commune. 

Never may the king divine, 

Tho a youth and maid he kill, — 

Tho he drink a holy wine 
To the elf within the hill. 

Amelup may laugh right well, 
If he hear that angry lord 

Beg the magic men to tell 
What no magic may accord. 



101 



THE HIDDEN POOL 

Far in a wildwood dim and great and cool, 

I found a cavern old, 
Where grew, above a pure, unfathomed pool, 

A flower of elfin gold. 

There, tho the night came lone of any lamp, 

Chill on the flower fell 
A pallor faint, inimical and damp, 

A halo like in Hell. 

Lambent it gleamed within the twilight calm, 

Long fugitive of day — 
Malign, I thought, with alien dew and balm, 

A moon of baneful ray. 

A breath of attar, fallen from the bloom, 

Made opiate the air. 
Like wafture of an undulant perfume. 

Flown from enchanted hair. 

A vampire bat, malignant, purple, cold. 

At midnight came to glean 
The honey that each petal would withhold 

From all but the unclean. 

Goblin and witch, I dream, have mingled here 

The venom of their blood, 
Nightly communing when that flower of fear 

Had broken not the bud. 
102 



THE HIDDEN POOL 

But, lich or lemur, none remained to note 

The pollen falling chill, 
A film on rock or pool, each yellow mote 

Pregnant with hate and ill. 

None other bent to watch, within that crypt, 

The troubled water foam, 
Nor knew, beyond, what violet ichor dripped 

From wall and hidden dome, 

Nor why (tho none came there to fail and drown) 

The troubled fountain boiled, 
When touched in that dark clarity, deep down, 

A pallid hydra coiled. 

What ghoul may come to pluck that flower of doom 

No witch hath rendered clear: 
The warden of an unrevealing gloom, 

I watch and wait and fear. 

It well may be a Form of death may own 

The twilight for a pall ; 
Till then I haunt the caverned air alone. 

With quiet under all. 



103 



THE DEATH OF CIRCE 

Plotting by night her death, 
The god rechanted that Aeaean rune, 
Till men beheld a vapor dim the moon 

With grey, demoniac breath. 

When charm and rune were whole, 
He brought that golden one a golden flagon, 
Made in the image of a writhing dragon, 

With teeth that clutched the bowl. 

He poured vermilion wine 
In that pale cup, to god or faun forbid, 
Knowing the witch knew not the venom hid 

In that red anodyne. 

He gave the witch, who quaffed 
And, drinking, dreamt not who had poured for her, 
Nor why the cup came redolent of myrrh, 

Nor why her leopard laughed ; 

Nor felt, from floor to dom.e, 
Her high pavilion quiver on the dark, 
Ere, with an augury too dim to mark, 

A quiet lapped her home. 

In all her magic craft 
There lay no power to warn her to beware 
The bitter drop from Lethe mingled there 

Within the traitor draught. 
104 



THE DEATH OF CIRCE 

But ere a pang of fright 
Could wake, or he be bidden to depart, 
There broke a little wound above her heart, 

From which the blood dripped bright. 

And heaven and earth grew dim, 
While round the throne there gleamed a coral flood, 
From her who knew not why the forfeit blood 

Fell lyrical for him. 



105 



THE PATHWAY 

Through the singing pines of Carmel runs the trail to 

Monterey, 
Taken by the gentle padres as they passed from bay to bay. 
'Round the meadow, up the hillside, goes the pathway to 

the North, 
Trodden by the fated savage ere the men of Spain went 

forth. 
Thought they then, the Mission fathers and the careless 

cavaliers, 
Of the dusky men that made it in the unrecorded years? 
So I questioned, idly musing where the yerba buena twines: 
"Far away and long forgotten!" sang the wind in Carmel 

pines. 

Of the trees that cast their shadow in the noontide of the sun, 
Green and great above the pathway, now remains not 

even one: 
Younger shafts have grown to fullness from the dust of 

parent trees; 
Younger branches hold their harpstrings to the fingers of 

the breeze. 
Brown and broken lie the needles, brown and brittle falls 

the leaf. 
Where beside the manzanita Fremont's flower had burst 

the sheaf. 
In the flood and surge of Nature, ebb and end the heart 

divines. 
'Tar away and long forgotten!" sang the wind in Carmel 

pines. 

106 



THE PATHWAY 

Man of God and caballero, shall a soul recall them now? 
O'er their ashes on the hillside yearly goes the needy plow. 
Tho we hear their names in legends of the empire they began, 
Face and form have slowly vanished from the memories 

of man. 
Where the Spanish beauty cantered, steeds of steel go down 

the lane; 
On the Mission falls the shadow of the circling aeroplane. 
In the glade where Summer wantoned, yellow lie the seeded 

vines. 
*'Far away and long forgotten!" sang the wind in Carmel 

pines. 

To the embers of our campfire on the margin of the beach, 
Where the stranded kelp is drying, soon or late the breakers 

reach. 
Slowly west the sun is setting, as we roam with trysting 

hands 
Where the spray is white a moment on our footprints in 

the sands. 
Shall our voices be remembered any more than winds that 

fled? 
Youth and love beside the river little reckon of the dead. 
How they brim the wide horizon, red and gold of sunset 

wines ! 
"Far away and long forgotten!" sings the wind in Carmel 

pines. 



107 



THE PATHWAY 

All the loves by Time defeated, how their sorrows haunt 

the heart! — 
Beauty born to beauty's passing, souls united but to part. 
Wild, aeolian wind above me, hold you still their farewell 

sighs? 
Time and tears dull not the splendor of the great, unhappy 

eyes. 
Faces bent from cruel casements, lips forbidden, mute 

below. 
Sad the light that falls upon you from the ages* afterglow. 
Like a lit ten tear of Heaven now the star of evening shines. 
"Far away and long forgotten!" sings the wind in Carmel 

pines. 

Two and two beside the shoreline share the thunder and 

the foam. 
Till beyond the dune or meadow love and twilight call them 

home. 
On the hills above the valley, bare of veiling grass and tree, 
Grey and level lies the shoreline of the prehistoric sea. 
You that wait by beach or woodland, you that share so 

brief a day. 
Keep the troth that two have given, and the trysting while 

you may. 
On their pathway in the heavens westward pass the 

solemn Signs. 
"Far away and long forgotten!" sings the wind in Carmel 

pines. 



108 



THE LAST ISLAND 

What prow shall find it? On the charts 
Our own is made the final land ; 
But visions of a farther Strand 

We find at evening in our hearts. 

Then gazing from the headland's height, 
We seem to see, remote and clear, 
A living radiance appear 

On jacinth terraces of light. 

Deep in the sunset fire it glows, 

Whose dusky scarlet, shoaling north, 
Lures grey or youthful dreamer forth 

To seek the lone horizon's rose. 

What golden people call it home? 

We too would learn their mythic tongue, 

And listen to the saga sung 
Beyond the coral and the foam. 

But many doubt and many scorn. 
So transitory burned that fire, 
An ember of the sunset's pyre 

That died on solitudes forlorn. 

Westward the purple deepens fast. 

Horizon to infinity; 

Mirage is on that changeful sea — 
Illusions of the feigning Vast. 
109 



THE LAST ISLAND 

Our oldest seaman knew a day 

When, staring from his galley's beak, 
He seemed to see a vesper peak. 

Faint, visionary, far away — 

A ghost of pearl, a shadow far. 

So dim he could not trust his eyes; 
Then, where it faded on the skies. 

Gazing again he saw a star. 

And ships have vanished in the West 
Whose mariners we knew awhile : 
Perchance, we say, they found that Isle, 

And ended there the dream and quest. 

The coastwise keels deny the tale. 

Beyond, they saw but ocean gleam; 

Another port, their captains deem, 
Harbors the unre turning sail. 

Who shall decide? For still that Land 

Seems not of futile mystery; 

Unresting stars and peaceless sea 
May well perturb the compass-hand. 

Tho where it gleamed the wave is blue 
On brine a thousand fathom deep. 
The vision and the hope we keep 

The sunset solitudes renew — 
110 



THE LAST ISLAND 

Of some far dusk when, Eden-eyed, 
Its happy folk shall welcome us, 
By sands no longer fabulous 

And foam of that enchanted tide. 



Ill 



INFIDELS 

Cold and eternal stare his eyes of stone, 
As now, adored across the templed gloom, 
The graven god exalts his granite room. 

Implacably his acolytes intone : 

The smitten gong makes answer in a groan ; 
Slowly the azures of the worship fume, 
Phantoms awhile of that enduring tomb, 

And ''Life is evil!" now the bonzes drone. 

Without, a darkness passionate with breath 

Of unseen flowers — a fragrance at the shrine 
Of two that lie incredulous of death. 

The grass is cool beneath her, and the night 
Holds, as a rose her immaterial wine, 
The moan and murmur of the old delight. 



112 



vox HUMANA 

(to HUMPHREY J. STEWART AT THE ORGAN) 

Riven with harmonies, I watched your hands 

Weave from the soundlessness their sounding spell. 
The music, with an ocean in its swell. 

Broke wave by wave upon the spirit's strands, 

And left me homesick for the ghostly Lands 

Where joys that died and deathless memories dwell, 
Regret was there, old voices of farewell. 

And Love went lonely on those shadow-sands. 

Time and eternity cried there their tale, 
With throats of choral thunder and the wail 
Of archangelic sorrows told to Night. 

Slowly they sank, until I seemed to hear. 
Far-wafted from a Paradisal height, 

My mother's voice, remotely sad and clear. 



113 



AN ELEGY 

H. M. M. 

Thank God for tears, for he is gone — 

Another shadow taken hence ; 
And now no touch of him is on 

The estranging harp-strings of the sense. 

He who was but a thought that ceast 
Endures no more save in our own — 

Claustral, content, assoiled, releast, — 
His brother-dead alone as lone. 

To memory of us and him 

Come not our deeds of gentleness : 

Plaudit and gift lie far and dim ; 
Reproofs retain their old excess. 

Old ardors lose their forfeit fire. 

Remains, to us who stood so blind. 
Of all desires a last desire : 

The wish that we had been more kind. 

But One hath shut a secret door 
On one who never shall return, 

Tho time the vernal stars restore, 
And earth the blossoms for his urn. 



114 



SONNETS ON THE SEA'S VOICE 



Since ocean rolled and ocean winds were strong, 
That voice on all the narrow shores is found, 
Unchanging, immemorial, profound, 

A sorrowing the caverned cliffs prolong. 

Where foam is choral and where thunders throng, 
Or where the sands, uncharted or renowned, 
Tremble forever to its elder sound. 

The ground-note of the planet's undersong. 

What man shall hear that utterance, alone, 
That dirge of life, that music not of man, 
Nor know how brief a term our seasons span 
And what a mystery our hearts denote, 
That hear from strands eternally unknown 

The pulse of chords tremendous and remote? 



115 



SONNETS ON THE SEA'S VOICE 

VI 

The wind has loosed its armies on the West, 

And ocean joined that huge hostility; 

Armored in jade, the legions, swinging free. 
Hurl rank on rank against the headland's breast. 
Within the thunders of that old unrest, 

The doom of gods that were and gods to be 

Seems sounded by the trumpets of the sea — 
The music of an everlasting quest. 

That cry was, when the sapphire deeps began, 

And still the hosts of wind and sea renew 
Their ancient menace in the heart of man. 
As, consonant, the voices of that war 
Meet in one Voice on the eternal blue : 

"Time was, Time is, and Time shall be no more!" 



116 



THE DEAD CAPTAIN 

F. C. H. 

This our strong man is dead at last, 

Lethe on brow and limb, 
And all our kingdom of the past 

Goes down in dust with him: 
Walls in whose shade we laughed and leapt- 

Built of his heart and brain ; 
Halls in whose peacefulness we slept — 

Now given to the rain. 

Beneath the shelter of his shield, 

A buckler strong and wide, 
Light-panoplied we took the field. 

Trusting our strength untried. 
We dreamt 't was we the foemen feared, 

Ere trumpets told the death 
And on the path his sword had sheared 

We passed with tranquil breath. 

The shock or cunning of the foe 

Little we reckoned then 
Who see today the battle go 

Against our fighting-men. 
The toil, the sweat, the expressed blood — 

We found them but in talk 
Of him who won across the mud 

That we on marble walk. 



117 



THE DEAD CAPTAIN 



Nothing he cares, who nothing knows 

How fares our war today, 
Gone to the long, austere repose 

That beds the weary clay. 
*T is we, by his old victories freed 

To respites dear as brief, 
That learn of our own woe and need 

His greatness and his grief. 



118 



WIND IN PINES 

Once forget-me-nots grew here, 
Where the grass and pines are met. 

Is she distant now or near? — 
She I was not to forget. 

Come the flowers, go the flowers: 
Memories come and will not go. 

In the summer that was ours. 
How were she and I to know? 

In the forest sang the bird ; 

On the grass the dews were clear. 
All unsaid our lacking word, 

All unwept the needful tear. 

As of old the pine trees sigh, 

Music of an old regret, 
Can she hear my heart reply ? — 

She that I cannot forget. 



119 



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